Social Media in 2020 And What It Means For Brands

Across the globe, governments are lifting restrictions, leading to the arrival of a post-lockdown phase. As people begin to step out a little, work becomes more structured, social media demographics evolve dynamically, leaving brands even more confused than before. At Futuready Media, we helped several brands leverage social media according to the need of the hour.

Diving into the insights of our research based on reports, social media is rapidly changing now than ever before, with 12 new users every second and shifting trends with every touch. There’s change in the way people are using it, making it difficult for brands to track and cater to customer preferences.

This means that brands have to be on the edge to ensure engagement is gained from customers consistently.

Coming to engagement - according to a report by GlobalWebIndex, staying up-to-date with news and current events is the most commonly cited reason during and post-lockdown for using social media (with 47% of all internet users using it for news updates). Thus, the news and journalism sector requires making a strong shift to social media for informing the masses. This also means that irrespective of the industry, brands have to ensure that they are generating some informative content.

At the same time, there is an increased desire for meaningful connections to be established online. This indicates the necessity for brands to utilize digital platforms to strengthen their ties with existing customers by generating more empathetic, highly relevant, and trustworthy content. In this particular stage, brands in every industry need to show that they care.

An interesting insight from the report is that media habits have diversified amongst the older generation. Gen X has adopted new behaviors and began to spend more time on social media. This opens scope for conventional brands to begin advertising on social media and find their target audience. Like recently, I found a real estate agent using Instagram reels to show plots and mention all demographics of the same. New, isn’t it?

Video and live content had been anyways gaining popularity online, however, the future of live streaming looks promising, as the GlobalWebIndex report says that in the lockdown period, 46% of Gen Z and millennials have watched YouTube live streaming, and 23% of global consumers plan to continue watching more videos post-outbreak.

Coming to particular industries, food supply chains need to highlight their food safety and hygiene measures, however, what’s new is that Burger King France recently even asked its customers to “order from McDonald’s”, elaborating how all restaurants needed support from customers and thus extended help to its competitors. This is where brands begin to behave like humans, by using social media platforms as a means to connect, instead of just advertise. This way, they can win the hearts of people and thus, reduce the loss of loyal customers.

To summarise, the crux of the social media in 2020, Futuready Media analysed that to stabilize industries and brands, there is a need to adapt to customer-centricity by keeping up with changing customer behaviors, and showing that they are there for people - whether to entertain, empathize, or uplift lives.